LETTER: Bypass plan is 'unsafe'

CalTrans is set to spend approximately $357 million on a Willits bypass project on Highway 101 that will not safely serve the people of this community.

We all agree Willits has serious traffic problems. Divisive attitudes are growing as the bypass project looms over us with all of its realities.

The current bypass plan for one-lane in each direction, with no median barrier is unsafe. This will result in numerous serious accidents. There will be no emergency access between interchanges for six miles of freeway.

All vehicles headed for Highway 20 will still have to travel through town. There won't be a Highway 20 interchange. Most of our local traffic problems could be addressed by adding alternate north-south routes, which would be far less costly than this CalTrans project.

This bypass may benefit long-haul truckers and building trade unions by moving goods along the highway as fast as possible...but the environment will be damned.

We are so lucky to live in a place where this still exists. This bypass jeopardizes the future of the ecosystem here. Much of the original wetland here was drained for ranching. Now, this plan will even take that pastureland away from ranchers.

We will endure pile drivers for years, thousands of dump trucks moving millions of cubic yards of dirt skimmed from nearby hills in the area of our new hospital. They will bury the wetlands and try to move it somewhere else. They will drain and lower the water table. The oaks will die, the animals will leave.

This must affect the people in the valley who depend on wells for water. What if the funds dry up before they finish? We could end up killing the valley and getting nothing.